No decent person looks at the world and says “you know what I want, a billion dollars!” So why do you still expect such people to behave decently?
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No decent person looks at the world and says “you know what I want, a billion dollars!” So why do you still expect such people to behave decently? Or to learn from their “mistakes.” (They’re not mistakes.) It fucking blows my mind how some of you are still giving these parasites every benefit of the doubt.
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No decent person looks at the world and says “you know what I want, a billion dollars!” So why do you still expect such people to behave decently? Or to learn from their “mistakes.” (They’re not mistakes.) It fucking blows my mind how some of you are still giving these parasites every benefit of the doubt.
Also goes for every fucking trillion-dollar corporation, by the way (yes, even the one you work at personally).
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Also goes for every fucking trillion-dollar corporation, by the way (yes, even the one you work at personally).
@aral In her book "Outsmarting the Sociopath Next Door" Martha Stout demonstrates how corporations meet the diagnostic criteria for sociopathy / psychopathy. Legal persons do have personality disorders.
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No decent person looks at the world and says “you know what I want, a billion dollars!” So why do you still expect such people to behave decently? Or to learn from their “mistakes.” (They’re not mistakes.) It fucking blows my mind how some of you are still giving these parasites every benefit of the doubt.
@aral I am immensely suspicious of anyone who wouldn't choose $100 million dollars, plus $900 of good charity and foundation work. $1 million dollars lets you retire young, $10 million gives you unimaginable freedom... I imagine $100 million is probably better. But a billion? What could I possibly do with a billion?
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No decent person looks at the world and says “you know what I want, a billion dollars!” So why do you still expect such people to behave decently? Or to learn from their “mistakes.” (They’re not mistakes.) It fucking blows my mind how some of you are still giving these parasites every benefit of the doubt.
@aral "Has/wants a lot of money" is a character flaw.
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R ActivityRelay shared this topic
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No decent person looks at the world and says “you know what I want, a billion dollars!” So why do you still expect such people to behave decently? Or to learn from their “mistakes.” (They’re not mistakes.) It fucking blows my mind how some of you are still giving these parasites every benefit of the doubt.
@aral A decent person looks at the world and wants to run and dance and paint and make things and help other people, and then get enough chicken or peaches or almonds to fuel the machine for another day just like that.
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@aral I am immensely suspicious of anyone who wouldn't choose $100 million dollars, plus $900 of good charity and foundation work. $1 million dollars lets you retire young, $10 million gives you unimaginable freedom... I imagine $100 million is probably better. But a billion? What could I possibly do with a billion?
I've been pondering what the cutoff number should be for a while. Someone a few weeks ago suggested $30M and I'm increasingly convinced that they're right.
$1M living somewhere moderately expensive may not be that much. There are a lot of not-very-large terraced houses around here that cost more than that (the median house price here, at current exchange rates, is around half a million US dollars, and that's skewed by a lot of really, really tiny flats). But let's ignore the cost of housing and look at the amount on top of that (as the numbers go up, housing as a proportion gets lower).
The rule of thumb for investments is that a diversified portfolio can generally average a return around 3-5% above inflation. With $1M, that's $30-40K/year. To make the maths easier, let's assume it's $36.5K, or $100/day. That has to cover household bills, but you're looking at at least $50/day of disposable income, even after tax. That's enough to live pretty comfortably.
Get to $10M, and the tax burden will be a bit higher, but now you're looking at $500/day. That's the sort of income where 'I left my iPad at home, I'll buy another one for this day trip' kind of thinking becomes realistic. At $30M, you're looking at $1,500/day of spending money. There's a Michelin-starred restaurant near here. I could eat there twice a day and not come close to that amount. If you want to fly business class across the Atlantic every couple of weeks and stay in a nice hotel at your destination, and take taxies everywhere you go, you can do so quite easily on that kind of budget.
Above that, you're going to struggle to spend money on things that are actually making your life better. Maybe you hire a bunch of servants?
I suspect the optimum point for comfort is somewhere in the $5-30M range. Anywhere much above that and the money will completely dominate your life and skew any interactions you have.
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